WE are happy to learn that the Davao City Police Office (DCPO), through its Marilog Police Station and in cooperation with television network giant GMA 7, has conducted early this week a gift-giving activity to lumad children in the station’s jurisdiction.
This is some shades of the Michael John Dubria watch at the DCPO when police community relations program seemed to have taken its roots. And we mean a community relations program that is not just mere words but also in deed.
We are hoping that under the present leadership of the DCPO the police in Davao City can further engage itself with the community so as to restore the people’s trust that has been diminished because of certain unfortunate incidents in the past involving a few bad eggs in the police organization.
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This year’s pre-Christmas “Simbang Gabi” (dawn masses actually) started yesterday. This time though, the holding of the masses has to contend with the many protocols mandated by the government in order to keep the faithful safe from infection of the deadly corona virus disease 2019.
Owing to the distance of our farm residence to the nearest Roman Catholic Church which is in Calinan proper, we attended instead the dawn “Kasaulogan” at the barangay chapel which is located in our property just beside our house. Following instructions from the government, when we entered the chapel we have to first step on a sanitizing wooden pan.
Then as we got inside the chapel we wrote down our name in a sheet of paper. We assume that the list of church goers is intended for contact tracing just in case a need arises. Then we have to spray our hands with alcohol and proceeded to the bench where only two church goers are allowed to sit, distancing a meter and a half in between.
We can sense the officers of the Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban (GKK) who running the chapel operation have become wary of the disease that for nearly a year already put the entire world on its toes as the virus has become so destructive to the countries and peoples of the world.
Some time back, especially during the early months of the CoViD 19 pandemic we heard mass celebrant priests, including some bishops, brought the government to task for allegedly overblowing the CoViD existence. Some church leaders in fact even insinuated that the CoViD 19 issue was a way of the state to get back at the Church where some of its leaders have crossed the divide between religion and politics.
In fact one bishop in Metro Manila who is openly critical more to the President than his administration, in several of the masses he presided, even scathingly accused the President of alleged human rights violations; of waging a personal vendetta against a television network who did not air his political ad during the campaign for the 2016 political derby.
So, with our personal observation that nowadays there seems to be manifest compliance by the church authorities to the restrictions imposed by the government to help curb the spread of the virus, we are now assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the Church has now realized that the state, after all, is not joking on the CoViD 19 situation in the country.
We hope that this change of heart by the Church authorities on the government’s action against CoViD will further enhance the effectiveness of the measures now put in place to arrest the spread of the deadly disease. Surely, by complying with government mandated health protocols the millions of Church goers who are strong adherents to the Church doctrine, will be benefit largely for such action.
The faithful are known to obey their acknowledged Church leaders, so a compliant Church carries with it compliance by its members.
Yes, with Church leaders complying government mandates on health protection measures, it is not far-fetched the “lambs” of God will politely oblige. This is where religious influence can best be measured.
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Early next year the “back to the classroom” holding of classes in some selected public schools will commence. Its pilot run. But the holding of classroom learnings is limited to schools located in the country’s low risk areas. Meaning, that in the record of the Department of Health (DOH) the areas concerned have very minimal if not, no cases of CoViD 19 was ever known” at all.
If we have to take the case of our own Davao City, then the most likely choices for the piloting of the “back-to-classroom classes” are schools in such areas as the Marilog and Paquibato hinterlands. There might not even be one to qualify among schools in the city’s more urban areas.
